"Electric cars are not a silver bullet solution for global warming, but could they actually be part of the problem? In some developing countries, the answer is likely “yes,” according to the results of a modeling exercise conducted

The results, which appeared in a paper published in Energy Policy last Fall, found that for countries with dirty power supplies – like India and China – widespread adoption of electric vehicles could lead to more – not less – CO2 emissions compared to widespread adoption of gasoline based vehicles, unless dramatically less CO2 intensive.

“Given the stateof their power generation mixes in 2010, the case for widespread adoption of [electric vehicles] in both China and India solely on the basis of potential CO2 emissions reductions is not too compelling, especially when the generally higher capital cost of [electric vehicles] relative to [gasoline]-based vehicles is considered,” Doucette and Malcolm McCulloch concluded."...